


Any Other Question

by smallscreensidekick



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 20:06:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18724039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallscreensidekick/pseuds/smallscreensidekick
Summary: Steve had never been short on questions. Especially where Tony was involved.“I wish you’d come here to ask me something else,” Tony had said. “Anything else.”





	Any Other Question

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nia_dAstarte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nia_dAstarte/gifts).



> Tony's line about wanting to be asked anything else just set off a million things in my brain and [Nia_dAstarte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nia_dAstarte) immediately told me to write it, so this one's on you. I hope you like pain. Well, I know you do.
> 
> Basically, I have a lot of feelings and Steve Rogers does too.

Steve had never been short on questions.

Even before he spent seventy years on ice and his whole life became one big question mark, something or other had always been keeping his mind busy.

Why would the military not let him sign up for duty when they needed soldiers so badly? Was there something else he could do to help? When did Bucky become so smooth around girls? Was it or was it not because of his new uniform?

Mostly, these questions didn’t need to be asked out loud.

Mostly, Steve worked them out in his own head.

Mostly, he found an answer in some shape or form.

Steve had never been short on questions. Especially where Tony was involved.

“I wish you’d come here to ask me something else,” Tony had said. “Anything else.”

When they drove away a couple of minutes later – Natasha behind the wheel, Scott in the back, uncharacteristically quiet – Steve’s head was so full of questions that it felt like they were colliding in his brain at full speed, the next one arriving when he hadn’t even finished asking the last. Steve tried his best to disentangle the more productive questions from the less useful ones.

What should they do now? Was there even a chance that they could do this without Tony? Was Tony right and they shouldn’t do anything at all? Could Steve live with himself if they didn’t at least try?

As Tony’s lake house got smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror and it became impossible to tell whether Tony was still standing on the porch, Steve’s mind was starting to spin with all the questions he’d never asked.

 

***

 

There was the one question he shouldn’t have asked, the first question he’d ever asked Tony, back when they first met.

“Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?”

Looking back, he deserved every last ounce of snide in Tony’s reply.

It was unfair, Steve had realized that soon enough. Tony threw himself into battle headfirst, determined to save more people than humanly possible, consequences be damned. There was a recklessness about him that Steve admired, as much as Tony’s disregard for his own safety worried him. Then again, who was Steve to lecture him on that one. Tony would be the first to point out the hypocrisy in that.

Tony was more, so much more than the sum of his armor’s shiny parts.

 

***

Steve took pride in the fact that he could figure out most things in the modern world by himself. He got the hang of talking to JARVIS very quickly. It had only taken him a couple of hours to learn how to use the tablet SHIELD provided him with. Hell, he was even starting to understand the subway system.

There was one thing he couldn’t work out though and when Steve asked Tony that particular question, Tony looked at him for what felt like a whole minute.

“Captain Steve Rogers,” Tony asked, his voice dripping with amusement. “Are you telling me you don’t know how to use a washing machine?”

“They weren’t really a thing in my day, Tony,” Steve said. “And in my defense, there are a lot of buttons.”

Tony only chuckled in reply.

“What?” Steve said, trying and failing not to get infected by Tony’s laughter.

“Nothing, I just can’t believe I have to show Captain America how to wash his tighty-whities.”

Tony’s laugh was a thing of beauty. It left his body so suddenly that it felt like Tony might be surprised to hear it himself.

“Laundry goes in the big hole, in case you couldn’t tell,” Tony said, helpfully.

“Great. This is great. I’m glad I came to you for help,” Steve said, throwing his laundry in. “And just for the record, they’re not tighty-whities. Natasha took me shopping.”

“Of course she did.” Tony was leaning against the washing machine, looking down at Steve. “I mean, now I’m just gonna be wondering what kind of underwear you’re wearing, so thanks for that, Cap.”

“You’re very welcome,” Steve said and closed the washing machine’s door with a bang.

There were some questions that didn’t need answering.

 

***

 

Somewhere between New York and Sokovia, somewhere between long briefings and even longer debriefings, somewhere between loud post-mission dinners and quiet glasses of scotch with Tony in his workshop, something formed in Steve’s mind that wasn’t so much a question as a feeling that he couldn’t quite place.

He supposed it was – what? Fondness, maybe? For the frankly insane life he was living, the people he was sharing it with, the moments of relief between all the chaos.

He didn’t want to look at that one too closely. Or else it might disappear.  

 

***

 

There was a question Steve did his best to push away, even while his brain kept circling around it:

Where did it all go wrong?

Possibly, probably, he could pinpoint the exact moment if he tried.

Possibly, probably, it had been the moment when they were all sitting around that table at HQ together, listening to Secretary Ross talk about the Sokovia Accords.

Possibly, probably, it had been the hundreds, thousands of moments when Steve chose not to tell Tony what he knew about the death of Howard and Maria Stark.

There was another question Steve tried to pit against the first one, even if it didn’t help all that much and it did nothing to get rid of the abyss in his stomach that threatened to take over his entire body:

Did it really matter, now that all the damage was done?

 

***

 

If Steve would talk to Sam about this – and he won’t – he was sure his friend would tell him that the question felt more appropriate for a romcom heroine than for an actual supersoldier:

Why hasn’t he called yet?

Whenever he heard about anything going wrong in the world, anything that would usually require an Avengers team-up, there would come a moment – usually but to his dismay not always after the concern, after the strategizing, after a deep breath – when Steve would wonder if this would be the mission where Tony would finally pick up the phone and ask for help.

Sometimes, when Steve felt especially weak, he’d think about just chatting to Tony, like they used to do in New York. When everyone else was asleep or at least pretending to be, when they found themselves in each other’s company in the early hours of the morning, talking about everything and nothing, because it was better than staring at the ceiling and anyway, there was a look in Tony’s eyes when he talked about something, anything that he was unabashedly excited about, something that didn’t have anything to do with saving the world, and that was a much better sight.

Something in Steve’s chest felt tight when he asked himself if he would ever get Tony to look at him like that again.  

 

***

 

For a while, after Thanos, Steve’s head was too empty for questions. Or too full, he couldn’t really tell.

When a question finally formed in his head, weeks later, it couldn’t have been less helpful and it couldn’t have made Steve feel more helpless:

Why?

 

***

 

In the car on their way back from Tony, Steve was drowning in questions.

Why didn’t I talk to you when I had the chance?

Does your new life make you happy?

Is there something you’re missing?

Do you want me to leave you alone?

Do you want us to stay for dinner?

Do you want me to stay for dinner?

Do you want to share a bottle of scotch?

Is there any chance that you can forgive me?

Is there any chance that you will let me forgive you?

Can you look at me without that look in your eyes that says I hurt you?

Can I tell you how much you mean to me or am I overstepping every line you drew in the sand?

Can I overstep every line you drew in the sand and then some more until there are no more lines left, just you and me?

Can we go back or move forward, one of the two?

Will you show me how to use your washing machine if I pretend not to know how it works?

 

Steve had never been short on questions.

How was he supposed to ask Tony even a single one?


End file.
